Living In The Past

"Now my memories they haunt me, they haunt me like a curse. Is a dream a lie that don't come true, or is it something worse?"

- Bruce Springsteen, "The River".

I spend a lot of time in the past. I think about the good times, I think about the bad times, and I think about all of the mistakes I made, the opportunities missed, the roads not taken. Most of all, I think about how the best years of my life are behind me. I think about the past a lot, because it beats thinking about the present or the future. My present sucks, and my future is as dark as a moonless night.

I tried to tell my daughter today about the importance of enjoying her life right now. She's nine, and nine is a perfect age. I remember being nine. The time when I was nine, ten and eleven were great years. I was old enough to have some independence - summer days spent out in parks with friends, away from grownups - but young enough that I was still free of big worries. My daughter is at that age now, before puberty and high school and all the angst, insecurity, anger and hopelessness that comes with being a teenager. I wanted to tell her how much I cherish the memories of being her age, but it backfired, and I came across as a man who was sad, sad that a great time in my life was gone.

She's smart. She sees through what I'm saying to the feelings beneath. I tried to tell her a few months ago that I had no hard feelings about divorcing her mother, and how sometimes things don't work out between people, and how sometimes it's for the best. She saw through my words and saw what I was trying to hide - a man who is depressed because all of his relationships fail and he's alone. She cried, because she hates to see me sad. I wish I could explain to her that I'm always sad, but there's no point.

I look back into the past, because it's all I have. From age 9 to 11, I was happy, and I took those endless summers with my friends for granted, summers that seemed eternal, when school was a thousand Augusts away. It all went off the rails in junior high. In grade 8, when I was 13, I attempted suicide for the first time. Suicide dominated my thoughts all through high school. College was great, and I was happy for two years. I had forgotten what being happy was like, and it was wonderful and intoxicating. I had lots of fun, I made new friends, I had my first girlfriend; college life was great. I wish I could have those two years back. I wish I could live them out again. Such days will never come again, at least not for me, so I think back to the past. It's all I have.

It's better to live in the present, to hold on to the few moments of joy that do come my way. And there are a few. But mostly, it's cold and miserable and dark in my life, with almost no prospects for improvement in the future. So I go through my favorite memories, holding them up to my mind's eye like faded photographs, and try to live in the past, if only for a few moments. It's sad, and I feel bad that my daughter can see my sadness. I try so hard to hide it from her.

I am an old man in a dark attic, looking at an ancient, faded scrapbook by the feeble light of a candle. I search for comfort, but my memories haunt me, the ghosts of better times that shall not return.